


Protecting the Cartmans'

by SorrowfulJoy



Category: South Park
Genre: Eric Cartman - Freeform, Kenny McCormick - Freeform, Kyle Broflovski - Freeform, Kyman if you squint, Liane Cartman - Freeform, Stanley Marsh - Freeform, basically just a fic about them being good friends, eric has deep emotional issues, the boys being wholesome, the boys love him anyway, violent client
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SorrowfulJoy/pseuds/SorrowfulJoy
Summary: The main four are all gaming at Cartman's house when Liane comes in being chased by a violent client, and the boys immediately jump into action. When all is said and done, Cartman struggles to accept that his friends actually care about him.





	Protecting the Cartmans'

“TANK!” Kyle grimaced as Cartman’s shout nearly deafened him and he elbowed the brunette on the couch next to him in response while shooting furiously at the zombies on the screen.

“We can see that fatass, you don’t need--hunter on Kenny--to try to deafen me next time!” Cartman scoffed, killing the zombie on Kenny’s character and helping him up.

“Oh shut up jew—Kenny take these pills---if I really wanted you deaf you’d know about it” Stan and Kenny shared a quick glance of solidarity as the two boys on the sofa behind them began bickering again. They could never get through a single game of Left 4 Dead without the two of them starting a fight of some kind.

“Yeah well you don’t need to shout that loudly-----” Kyle was cut off as the front door suddenly swung open and Cartman’s mom came rushing inside sobbing. All four boys immediately jumped to their feet at the sight of Liane with blood smeared across her face holding up her torn dress.

“Mom!?” Liane froze at the sight of all four boys looking at her but then a shout from the door made her cry out in fear.

“GET BACK HERE!” The boys looked behind Liane to see an average looking man with an angry sneer plastered across his face as he reached out and tried to make a grab for Liane.

“HEY! GET AWAY FROM MY MOM!” Liane stumbled back from the man’s outstretched hand as Cartman put himself in between the two, glaring at the guy with murder in his eyes. Stan immediately stepped forward and gently grabbed Liane by the arm, pulling her back away from the man and standing in front of her protectively.

“You’re the whore’s son?” Kyle stepped forward, feeling his anger rising, and he watched as Cartman’s face turned red with anger.

“What did you just---” The man cut Cartman off with an eye roll as he reached out to push him out of the way

“Whatever kid just get out of my way, that bitch owes me” Cartman planted his feet into the ground and gave the man a hard shove backwards; watching with satisfaction as the guy smacked back into the wall behind him.

“Shut the fuck up and get out of my house asshole!” There was only about a three second warning before the guy’s fist smashed into Cartman’s face, the force of the blow knocking the boy to the ground and Liane let out a sound of pain, like she herself had been struck, but was stopped by Stan from rushing forward.

“HEY ASSHOLE!” Cartman glanced up just in time to see a blur of red jump over him and straight onto the guy who had just hit him. He blinked in amazement as Kyle took the guy down to the floor with one well aimed knee to the groin and watched as Kyle started landing punches on him; barely noticing Kenny’s outstretched hand until it was grabbing his wrist and pulling him up to his feet.

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!” Kyle let out a grunt of pain as the guy managed to kick him off and he fell backwards onto his butt.

“You’re gonna fucking pay for that!” With one of the most typical lines ever said by a cringey bully in a high school film the guy pulled out a knife from his pocket and sneered down at Kyle. Cartman felt like all the air had been sucked out of his chest as the guy took a step towards Kyle and the red head scrambled backwards with wide eyes.

“Hey, asshole, over here.” All eyes were drawn to Kenny and the boys’ eyes widened upon seeing the pistol he was holding. Cartman could hear the gulp in the man’s throat as Kenny stared at him with cold eyes, his hood lowered so that his voice was nice and clear.

“Get the fuck out of this house before I pull the trigger. You’ve got three seconds. One.” Before Kenny had even finished speaking the man turned tail and immediately booked it out of the house. A silence fell over the four for a moment before Liane’s sobs broke it and all four boys looked over to her.

“Oh! Thank you boys so much! I’m so sorry about that he just started getting really aggressive and I just—” She broke down into sobs again and collapsed into Stan’s arms. Cartman felt heat spreading rapidly to his cheeks as he directed his gaze to the floor and he could only imagine the thoughts his friends were having right now about his mom and her lifestyle and oh god why did this have to happen when they were all here and—

“Sssh, it’s okay Ms. Cartman, he’s gone, it’s all okay now” Cartman was dragged out of his thoughts by Kenny’s soft voice and he glanced up to see that the blonde had put away the gun and was now wrapping a blanket around his mom and he watched speechlessly as Stan came out of the kitchen holding a glass of water; both boys calming his mom down and he had a sudden thought as to where the jew was when he heard a click and he glanced behind him to see Kyle was locking the front door and putting the chain on it.

“Oh, thank you, you’re all so sweet honestly.” His mom was still sniffling but she had calmed down considerably and Cartman was about to say something to her about going upstairs because her dress was torn and of course he was worried about her but he was also worried about his friends making fun of him and her but he was cut off as a hand grabbed his jaw and couldn’t bite back the wince that accompanied the action as Kyle’s face suddenly came back into view and the red-head frowned at him.

“He got you good huh? One second” Cartman frowned, wondering what Kyle meant when he took a glance in the mirror hanging above their sofa to see that the right side of his face was bruised and his lip was split. He didn’t realise the guy had hit him that hard.

“Here, press this against your face.” Kyle came back with a bag of frozen peas then and Cartman frowned at him and the bag suspiciously; Kyle rolled his eyes in response.

“Just take it fatass, it’ll make the swelling go down.” Cartman felt a bit better at the usual insult and reluctantly took the bag

“I don’t need help from you Kahl.” Even so, he still pressed the bag to his face and grimaced at the coldness as Kyle scoffed

“Yeah right, just like how you didn’t need my help when that asshole knocked you to the floor either” Cartman blinked at him then, raising a brow

“Yeah I seem to remember you beating the shit out of him straight after that,” Cartman felt a slow smirk slip onto his face and ignored the slight pain it caused

“Were you worried about me Kahl?” He practically purred the line out, hoping to rile Kyle up so he could get back to some sense of normality, and wasn’t disappointed as the jew flushed red and elbowed him gently in the side; but his words were not at all what Cartman was expecting

“Shut up, of course I was, he took you to the floor with a single hit, I thought he’d knocked you out, asshole.” Cartman felt an actual warmth bloom in his chest at that – a very new sensation to him - and he found he couldn’t do anything except blink back in shock

Did Kyle just say he was worried about him?

“Hey, your mom’s gone upstairs to take a bath, she’s a bit shaken but she’s fine, you two alright?” Stan and Kenny came into view, the former being the one who had spoken and Cartman nodded; ignoring the small frown Kyle was directing at him.

“Yeah, the jew’s just being his usual worrisome self.” Kyle rolled his eyes at that and held out his hand expectantly

“Fine, I guess I’ll just take those peas back then.” Cartman scoffed and stepped backwards to avoid Kyle’s hands

“Uh no way, this is mah house and these are mah peas!” Kyle snorted with a fond smile on his face and Cartman was trying to ignore the way his face wanted to stretch into a smile and the warm foreign feeling that was settling inside him.

“Surprised you even had something that healthy in your freezer.” Cartman opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by a laugh from Kenny

“Yep, they’re alright. Come on, I wanna shoot some zombies” He headed back over to the TV and plopped himself right back down in front of it; looking up at his friends with a sassy smirk.

You’d have never thought this was the same guy that not even five minutes ago was threatening a guy with a gun in his hand and ice in his eyes.

Stan sighed and shrugged, easily giving up and following Kenny to sit down on the floor with him. Cartman frowned, hesitated for a moment as he glanced between them all and then to the stairs. Did they really not care? He thought for sure they would have poked fun at him by now, left in disgust, told their parents about Liane Cartman’s latest client and---

“Dude, seriously, come sit down, your mom’s fine.” Cartman frowned at Stan, still unsure, that was until Kyle made a sound behind him and then walked past him to drop down on the sofa, grabbing the controller and raising a brow at him in challenge

“If you don’t join us in the next three seconds I’m gonna un-pause and we’ll let the tank free on you” Kyle smirked at him, finger hovering over the button and Cartman couldn’t stop the smile that overtook his face this time as his three friends sat waiting for him to join them

“One, twoo” Kyle pressed the button and the game started back up again

“Ey! You said three!” Cartman immediately jumped onto the sofa next to Kyle, grabbing his controller to join the others in fighting the tank

“Oops, guess my finger slipped.” Kyle’s tone was flat, but he gave Cartman a gentle nudge with his shoulder and the bigger boy could feel the warmth spreading from his shoulder down to his chest and he relaxed into the sofa with an unshakeable smile on his face.

He could get used to feeling like this.


End file.
